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This Project Took Artist Phil Hansen All Of 2017 To Create, And Then He Destroys It In Minutes

I am submitting this original artwork on the behalf of Phil Hansen with his permission. I am employed by him to do so. Thanks!

About When I was 7:

Phil Hansen found himself, as many people did over the last few years hearing about the war in Syria. He has always struggled (in a certain sense) to understand war as he has lived his entire life without war on his country’s soil. For him the idea that a military or other group could come through his city and demolish it was far from his personal reality. As the news feed continuously put the Syrian war in front of him, the one story that struck him most was reading about Bana Alabed. She was a 7 year old girl that was live tweeting her war experience from Aleppo during the worst of the bombing. Hansen remembered back to when he was 7 and his strongest memory was losing a lens from his glasses and the teacher recruiting everyone to help look for it.

Hansen shared the experience and reflection with his family and friends, and they shared their own stories from what they remembered from being 7 years old. There is a pretty wide age range and Hansen heard stories from people born in 1940’s to 2000. Hansen enjoyed the experience of listening to people’s memories and wanted to find a way to capture them.

He collected over 600 recollections and used the stories to create a massive, handwritten artwork. When I was 7 wasn’t originally intended to be part of his Goodbye Art 2 series. It was Hansen’s opus of 2017, but as he begun the new series he realized that this was the type of project that should be part of the series. Something he thought shouldn’t be destroyed.